Ageing and its impact on finance

What does an older population mean for markets? The last article of a four-part series on global ageing.

Japan's rapidly ageing population is well known, but the problems it creates are not confined to Japan. The rest of Asia is going to experience the same phenomenon, asserts Makoto Atoh, director-general at the National Institute of Population Research in Tokyo.

Japan has completed a 'fertility transition', where families produce not five but around two children. Its population has peaked and has begun to fall. Hong Kong and Singapore are about a decade behind. China, as well as the developing...